Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!

Love from a little me!

Trellech

I can’t remember how I first heard about Trellech, but it’s been on my To Visit list for quite a while. Fate conspired to combine a rare Saturday off with a beautiful sunny and frosty day, which felt like the perfect time to visit.

Trellech is in the Wye Valley, and is said to have been the largest settlement in medieval Wales. Nowadays it’s noted for its standing stones and sacred well.

After a quick stop at the lovely Lion Inn (which had a very welcome open fire), we went to visit Harold’s Stones, so called because, according to legend, three of Harold’s Chieftains died in battle at this spot, although the stones pre-date Harold by a couple of thousand years. Another legend says that they were thrown by a giant called Jack O Kent as he was having a competition with the devil!

The Virtuous Well, or St Anne’s Well, is just off the road, but felt like the middle of nowhere. The name is derived from Annis, the Celtic Goddess of water and rivers, but become the well of St Anne when Christianised. The water was historically considered particularly beneficial for ‘complaints peculiar to women’!

The trees overhanging the well were full of offerings, strips of cloth which have been tied to the branches. Apparently fairies dance round the well on Midsummer’s Eve, so that might be a good time to go if you fancy a visit!

It really was such a beautiful day when we went, frosty and bright.

Hoop Path

On Sunday I risked the wrath of the Bristol curse (which makes me lost, every bloody time I go there), and went to a hooping workshop.

Of course I got lost on the way there. Thanks to Murray (my satnav) for deciding he would switch off just as I got to Bristol, I had to rely on panicking and going round in circles. Until I eventually stopped to check the map on my phone and found I’d ended up a couple of minutes away somehow! The hoops on the gate gave it away.

So I was a bit stressed when I got there. And it didn’t help that I haven’t really picked up a hoop since moving house last autumn (except for once when I managed to scratch the ceiling and quickly put it away). I was also only turning up to the third workshop of three, so I was wondering what I’d missed. Plus it was blimmin freezing.

I was soon put at ease. Baxter is an amazing teacher. The workshop, called Open Air, looked at using the hoop as a tool in movement meditation practice. We were led through a number of different exercises, from learning how to hoop warrior-style, to exercises without the hoop such as blindfolded dancing meditations. Once I got over the fear that I was going to be the only one still moving while everyone else had taken their blindfolds off (!) I found these exercises particularly beautiful, even if the hooping is what I’d gone for. It reminded me of how I felt at the 5Rhythms workshop at last year’s Hoop Gathering. I love having the freedom to just move in mad, crazy ways, and knowing everyone else was blindfolded definitely helped!

It was such an inspiring day. I’ve been sending out late night emails to local halls to see if I can take my hoops there for a practice session, so I don’t go knocking chunks out of the flat! You never know, one day Dinky Poo might follow Bristol in being Hoop Community of the Year! Erm…

 

Egyptian Shumba!

I can’t believe I went to Egypt all those months ago without constantly playing this song. It only occurred to me today!

I adore this song! It was the last track on a compilation I bought in my last year of uni, called Girls go Zonk!!, a collection of mostly obscure US 60s girl group songs compiled by Mick Patrick. There’s loads of other gems on that album, but this one blew my mind!

Egypt itself was pretty mindblowing. We were there during the time of the Parliamentary elections so it was an interesting time. A great place for contrasts, as Flaubert said. Before going, I had read a book about trips taken down the Nile by Flaubert and Florence Nightingale. Their time, to me, seems so long ago, so to see these tombs and temples still standing as they’d described was pretty amazing. Really sad to read about the riot at Port Said this week.

The Camel Centipede

January

One of my goals for the year is to try and take more photos. To help this I’m aiming to take at least a photo a day and save it in Picasa. I’ve made it a whole month so far! Which is about 29 days more than the previous two years I’ve tried this! Not that they’re particularly exciting photos. It feels like it’s been a pretty quiet January, with post-Christmas downtime, and finishing off my counselling course, and I don’t feel like I’ve been outside as much as I’d like! Although I have started new bellydance, burlesque and NIA classes to try and keep active. Which is good as there seems to be a lot of pictures of cake, considering I was trying to eat healthily this month…

Frosty Cardiff, on my way to a Youth Mental Health First Aid course (which was excellent). 

Shiny! The new coin belt I bought in Egypt, now being put through its paces in bellydancing.

Looking through baby pictures for a ‘team-building’ thingy in work. I seem to be covered in food in most of them. Explains a lot!

A brand spanking new year

So, the tide has washed away 2011 and all that went with it (do you see what I did there, do ya do ya?). We saw out the last day with a quick dash between rainstorms to Lavernock Point, for a bit of hunting both fossils and geocaches. Nothing like a few fossils to make a year in your life feel like no time at all!

Still, I’m determined to make this year count, however insignificant in the grand scheme of things. In the time-honoured tradition, I’ve decided now is a good time to deal with the post-Christmas bleurgh, and get a bit healthy. So the last few days have been full of yoga, green smoothies (not as bad as I’d feared!), a whole lotta vegetables and even a run. We’ve been catching up with The Walking Dead and I can think of no better motivation for getting in shape than the thought of having to leg it from a load of zombies. I’m sure this won’t last past the weekend (for which is scheduled a trip to Purple Poppadom before watching Robin Ince, as well as afternoon tea the day after so I will need a will of iron to try and eat healthily, which I’m pretty sure I don’t have!).

I hope 2012 is a good year for you all, and is generally a lot less rainy than it is today!

Happy holidays!

I hope you’ve all had a nice Christmas. Despite having to work Christmas day, it feels like we’ve had a nice break. Christmas Eve was spent with my folks, drinking lots of red wine and making plans for next Christmas. After work on Christmas Day we went to Dave and Laura’s, where Dave had made an awesome Christmas dinner. We had a lovely day, playing Trivial Pursuit and falling asleep in front of Doctor Who (that might have just been me!).

On Boxing Day we made a flying visit up north and watched a version of the Wizard of Oz where Bolton had replaced Kansas and the Wonderful Wizard was from Wigan.

It’s nice to be back home and chilling out a bit now. In the weeks leading up to Christmas I was busy crafting and baking, when I wasn’t busy stuffing my face with cheese and chocolate. I made a few crochet flower badges, and a crochet Christmas garland (2011 will go down as the year I finally conquered crochet, mwahaha).

I also shamelessly nicked Hayley’s Cookies in a Jar idea, and made batches of White Chocolate & Baileys Fudge, spiced apple chutney, chocolate truffles and Christmas cake truffles. I haven’t heard that anyone has been taken into hospital with sugar coma/food poisoning/stabbing from badly sewn on pins yet, but I fear it may only be a matter of time!

So it’s just about getting ready for 2012 now I guess. 2011 has been mostly fun. I’ve ridden a camel on the banks of the Nile, trekked a llama in Herefordshire, moved house (again), started a new job, passed year 1 of my counselling course, passed a photography course, failed a photography course (couldn’t get my arse in gear to submit my coursework), bellydanced in front of a whole cruise ship, volunteered briefly at a psychiatric hospital, actually got round to going non-festival camping finally, and had some awesome holidays here and abroad. I’m hoping 2012 brings more adventure. Next up is Tokyo in March, can’t wait!

And as I think I probably put every year on my blog when I remember:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself. Neil Gaiman

Gotta keep movin…

We’d been in our last flat a whole year (compared to the six months we’d lasted at our previous house) so it was getting time to move on! I spend so much time at home now it was time to get something with a bit more space, and somewhere a bit quieter to help me sleep between night shifts. So we are no longer citizens of Cardiff.

It feels like it’s been a manic couple of weeks so I don’t really feel like I’ve seen much outside the little bubble of my flat, but we did have some time last weekend to eat lunch at the deli round the corner, drink a few pints at our new local, and have a quick walk in the woods in between, to justify all that eating and drinking! It’s really nice to know such a beautiful place is in walking distance. The colours were amazing. I do love autumn (when it’s not being grey and rainy anyway).

Here be ghosties

It might not be Halloween yet (although the supermarkets would have us believe that it’s pretty much Christmas) but last weekend we went hunting ghosties.

Andy’s family were down so we surprised them with some tickets to the Llandaff Ghost Walk. It was rather a bargain. The ticket price of £15 included the walk and a two course meal at a restaurant nearby. Despite having stuffed ourselves in the new coffeeshop above Wally’s not long before (the Rohrbach sandwich there is seriously amazing), and walked for miles around town, we were all still up for more eating and walking. Well, most of us were, the poor husband’s been poorly and we didn’t think he’d make it on the walk, but he did luckily, as I needed protecting from the ghoulies and ghosties! So those of us who did eat enjoyed the food, even though everyone looked in disgust at my beetroot and paneer curry (which was actually lovely, I have to say).

While we were eating, we had some info to read on poltergeists and other spooky goings-on, which I thought was a nice touch. Then it was off to find out what was lurking in the dark corners of Llandaff. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I didn’t know if it would be people in sheets shouting ‘boo!’ from behind trees, but it wasn’t luckily, and it was great! So many interesting stories which gave a really good insight into how Llandaff, and Cardiff, were in the past. And Jim, the tour guide, was such a good storyteller. I have to confess I didn’t see anything otherworldy myself but it was genuinely creepy! I particularly liked the story about the Gwrach y Rhibyn, a story I seemed to half-remember from somewhere. I’d really recommend it to anyone looking for something a bit different to do on a Saturday night!

(No, the photo of the lampost doesn’t really have anything to do with Llandaff or ghosts, but it’s vaguely old’n'spookylooking!).

Oy Oy Oy!

So I had my first successful go on an OYBike today. Third time lucky – first time the bike didn’t want to, well, move (which I find is a handy quality to have in a bike) and the second time I rocked up to the rental location to find no bikes left.

Today, before starting work, I had to drop off a file at an office in town (which will hopefully lead to me getting an advocacy qualification as long as I’ve filled everything in properly). I walked through the park to get there, and what a gorgeous autumnal walk it was, crunchy leaves underfoot and the wind whipping through my hair, rendering me a right Cousin It. I didn’t have much time to get back and make lunch before my shift (spicy butternut squash soup – I love autumn!) so thought I”d take a chance on an OYBike.

So previous experience hadn’t been too good, and I hadn’t heard great things about them either, so I was a bit worried. However, I’d paid a whole pound to register (usually £18 for a year), so I thought I’d better use it and get my money’s worth. There were plenty of bikes outside City Hall which was a good start, and the renting bit of the process was pretty easy.

Actually riding the thing, jeez! Now, I know absolutely nothing about bikes, despite being a regular customer of the lovely Pedal Power over the years while I was a befriender for the National Autistic Society, and this could entirely be my fault and not the bike’s. It was pretty damn windy, and I had been to the gym in the morning for the first time in far too long so my legs were complaining a bit before I started, but the bike felt so heavy to use! I was a big sweaty mess and pretty cream crackered by the time I got to Pontcanna Fields. However, I could tell how jealous everyone was of my giant yellow bike so that was a bonus!

It was free though as I’d had it for under 30 minutes so I can’t complain too much. It was pretty convenient for just hopping on and off quickly. Especially for those of us who live in flats where the purchase of a bike would take up pretty much the entirety of any remaining free space. If I wanted it for longer than 30 minutes though, I think I’d stick to the nice, non-leg-demolishing bikes at Pedal Power!